


Didn't Mean It

by Alliance (Xazz)



Series: Cypress Hall [42]
Category: Flight Rising
Genre: Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, minor gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-05-25 23:37:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14988026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xazz/pseuds/Alliance





	Didn't Mean It

There was a crack on the desk when Oryx slapped the table with a switch. Aten winced but didn't look up. He kept his head down in the book he was reading. If he looked up Oryx would take that to mean he wasn't doing his work and would use it as an excuse to slap him across the shoulders with the switch. He wasn't paying attention to the words, he was keeping his awareness on the older warlock for a few seconds. “Its been four minutes since you wrote anything, whelp. Are you even able to comprehend what's written?” Oryx sneered.

“I'm a slow reader,” he mumbled, hunching a bit. Truthfully Aten was terrible at this language and was having trouble understanding what was written but he wouldn't tell Oryx that. It was an old tongue spoken at the beginning of the Third Age by Light Dragons. Mostly by Imperials. Oryx would say it was disrespectful to his heritage to not understand the old tongue. Aten thought that was shit. Oryx wasn't making him learn old Skydancer languages or Sihngarisince his mother was a Skydancer and he was a Wind dragon. He just wanted Aten to struggle. He got pleasure out of watching Aten struggle since he felt so impotent because his sister was so good at everything and Savathün’s apprentice, not his. He got the leftovers of greatness: Aten.

“Well don't waste my time,” Oryx snarled. Aten winced again when he slapped the desk with the switch.

Aten kept his head down and poured over the text. He felt Oryx standing behind him, watching him like a bonepicker waiting for him to screw up. Aten finally wrote something on his notes and finally, Oryx stepped back and away from him. He didn't show his relief, he just focused on the text. Then he got stuck on a really difficult passage. It was full of words he didn't understand and couldn't infer because the context words were ones he also didn't know. The next few passages referenced the thing heavily and they were equally unhelpful. He knew Oryx would ask him about this. He needed to figure this out. He ended up staring at the passage for a long time. Long enough for Oryx to notice he was doing nothing.

This time he didn't slap the desk. He slapped the switch across the back of his shoulders. Not as hard as he could have or had done but hard enough to make Aten wince, his shoulders tense. “What's the hold up?”

Aten weighed his options. How much trouble would he be in lying about making sure he was absorbing it all in or he didn't understand? He figured they'd be equal so he decided not to lie. “I don't know what it says,” he admitted and bowed his head, his blonde hair falling around his face.

Oryx leaned over his shoulder to see the offending passage. He gasped in surprise when Oryx slammed his head down onto the book. “That? Even my small daughter can read that,” and he squeezed the back of Aten’s neck hard and painfully. Aten grit his teeth and clenched his fist. “Pathetic.”

“What does it say?” Aten said like he wasn't in pain, trying to talk around Oryx’s grip, his fingers practically digging every into the bones of his spine.

Oryx got off him and he took a deep breath but didn't dare move. Oryx walked away. Aten stated down as he heard Oryx getting something from another bookshelf he slowly rose his head. Wrong time. He lifted his head at the perfect time for the book Oryx had thrown at him to strike him across the side of his face. Aten reeled and saw stars briefly from being hit in the face by a heavy book. “Figure it out,” Oryx was mad because Aten was stupid. “And pick up that book you dropped.” Aten was still trying to get himself in order. The book that had hit him was an old thing bound with a metal binding wrapped in leather and as thick as his fist.

He didn't recover fast enough for Oryx because at a distance Oryx slammed his head back into the table. “I said pick up the book,” Oryx growled.

This time when Aten had been hit he could focus a bit better. He recovered quicker than before and his eyes rolled to Oryx. “Stop hitting me,” he groaned.

“What?” Oryx sounded ready to be enraged.

Aten sat up. The three successive blows to the face had made his nose start bleeding in a slow ooze. “I said, stop hitting me,” he growled back and wiped his nose on the back of his hand, smearing a bit of blood across his face.

Oryx’s reply was a smirk and then a pair of invisible hands grabbed him by the antlers and pitched Aten over, slamming him into the ground. Part of his antler broke off on impact. “You're my ward, I'm free to do with you as I please,” Oryx said like Aten was a misbehaving cat.

Aten breathed furiously from being hit again. Oryx had been hitting him basically since he and his sister had come to the Warren years ago when they were children. He could still remember his sister's shrill screaming at him when he hit Aten so hard half his face had been a single shade of purple. The times his back was a series of hard red lines from Oryx’s switch or when Oryx was in his draconic form and would nip painfully at his wings and tail to make a point. Years of torment under this asshole’s ‘tutelage’ which had amounted to a lot of pain, humiliation and only a bit of basic magical instruction to only get yelled at because he was too stupid because he didn't know more advanced techniques. And what he was good at was scoffed at and belittled. A worthless addition to the radiant prodigy that was his sister, only taken into this twisted Warren because without him Astra wouldn't come quietly.

“Stop hurting me,” Aten growled out through clenched teeth. He could feel his throat full of ozone, choking and cloying against his teeth and tongue. He tried to pick himself up but Oryx stepped on his shoulder, pressing him down.

“You don't tell me what I can and cannot do. That's my job,” Oryx said. Aten growled wordlessly. A snarl bigger and deeper than his humi body should have been able to produce. “Don't think too highly of yourself, runt,” Oryx sneered.

“Get off me.”

“Make me,” Oryx jeered.

Aten screamed and it felt like his entire body ripped apart, skin tearing and reforming. Then he looked down and saw Oryx below him. The older warlock was looking up at him, eyes wide, his stupid pipe having fallen out of his mouth in surprise. “Stop. Hurting. Me!” Aten roared and his voice sundered the air. His vision was green with fury as his element ran flush through his entire body, the rosettes and dark markings on his butterfly patterned wings suddenly glowing bright Wind green. He was furious and Oryx was the source of his anger. He growled deeply. Oryx was small and fragile in his humi form in front of him, hardly coming up to Aten’s shoulder.

“Now just settle down, Aten,” Oryx said.

“Make me,” and he snapped his great imperial jaws at Oryx.

Oryx lobbed a magical projectile at him. Aten didn't know what overcame him to do so but he just opened his jaws and ate the frozen bolt of magic. He swallowed, burped and it came up as frozen methane. He grinned a wide imperial grin at Oryx, his eyes glowing green. There was a beat of silence between them before the warlock bolted, racing out of the metal door. Aten roared after him and gave chase, destroying the door frame to force his great size through.

Aten crashed out into the tunnel and snorted, looking down both ways and saw Oryx running the wrong way down deeper into the Warren. The tunnel was large enough for a fully grown Imperial to easily walk through it and Aten wasn't yet fully grown. That and the fact that he was a Wind dragon allowed him to fly down the tunnel towards the running warlock who'd laid down a thick layer wet of ice to make Aten slip and slide if he came after him but he hadn't accounted on Aten flying.

He landed right behind Oryx, flapping his great wings hard to send up a whirlwind that caught Oryx across the back and sent him sprawling. Aten pounced, knocking him down. Oryx cried out and hurled another bolt of magic at him. Aten swallowed it and belched carbon monoxide back down and stunning him, his wings weakly trying to break himself free from Aten’s claw but with the toxic gas, he couldn’t do much.

Aten settled down like a lioness on Oryx, folding his wings neatly against his back. His vision was still green and his blood pounded in his ears. “Seems the tables have turned, Oryx,” he rumbled.

“Stupid child,” Oryx hissed out and tried to pry his claw off of him with little success. He glared his near snow blind white eyes up at Aten and hurled a dark, coiling, mass of energy at Aten. This one he didn't swallow. Something primal screamed at him to not do so. He ducked instead and it would have hit him of not for his broken antler. “Well, going to do something or just look smug, damn runt?”

Aten growled and dug his claws into his flesh. Oryx yelled as his blood covered Aten’s claws. He got no satisfaction from it. This horrible wretch had hurt him for over a decade but Aten wasn’t like him. He didn’t like hurting other. He got no pleasure from it. No relief from listening to Oryx yell in pain. In the sound of snapping bones and a screaming in his muscle and joints, Aten shrank back down to his humi form. It left him winded and Oryx, still bleeding, shoved him off of him and struggled to his feet and used magic to open huge cuts across his body. Aten roared but it just made him angry. Even in defeat Oryx couldn't just be nice to him for even a moment.

He'd honestly been planning to let Oryx go. Hurting Oryx brought no catharsis so there was no point to continue. He'd have let Oryx struggle alone in the dark until he bled out, healed, or found something down here in the tunnels. But as magic cut into his flesh, blood pouring out from his fresh wounds, Aten changed his mind.

Aten focused his mind and healed himself of the largest cuts so he didn't bleed out before struggling to his feet. He lunged for Oryx who wasn't ready and he got his hands around his throat. “For once in your miserable life, stop hurting me,” Aten snarled and slammed his head down into the ground several times. Oryx was dazed and Aten punched him in the face. Aten felt cartilage break under his fist and Oryx grabbed his wrist. Aten used the other hand to punch him while he used his own transformation magic to cripple Oryx’s hand, turning the bones into dust. Oryx just tried to hit him with his other hand and Aten punched him again. Oryx beat at him with his wings to get him off by Aten just used his own and every time Oryx smacked him with his heavy leather wing he punched the warlock in the face.

“Idiot,” Aten muttered when Oryx finally stopped trying to beat him. He got up and ran his hand through his hair. He caught sight of something up the tunnel and saw Killing standing there. Her already pale skin was deathly white, her pretty golden eyes wide. “Killing, what are you doing here?” he asked her. He took a step towards her and she took one back with a sharp shriek. “Hey, what's the matter? You shouldn't be this deep in the tunnels,” he took another few steps towards her and she screamed and ran away. “Killing!” he called after her but she was quickly lost in the darkness. Her small size allowed her to fly and he wasn't about to run after the little girl if she was so afraid of him. Why was she so afraid anyway?

He looked back at Oryx and his ears dropped a little. Oh. That was why she was so afraid. He looked down at his hands. They were covered in blood and his chest was equally splattered with the dark ichor. He carefully walked over to Oryx. “Oh fuck,” he crouched next to the warlock and reached out. His skin was warm but his Ice pale eyes were hollow and lifeless. They were the only things Aten could really see of his face. Aten had destroyed his face with his fists and his wings were deformed from Aten transforming them.

“What's going on here?” his head shot up and icy dread curled down his spine. It was Savathün and Astra. Astra was holding Killing who was clinging to her and pointing at Aten terrified. The two women stopped and saw Aten crouched over Oryx’s lifeless body. It looked bad. It was bad. Aten didn't dare move. Savathün looked at Aten and then Oryx and then back to Aten. “What did you do?” she shrieked. He stood slowly as Savathün advanced and shoved him out of the way. She ripped off her head covering and took Oryx’s mutilated face in her hands. Her visage was an unreadable mask.

Aten started to back up, toward his sisters. “Aten,” Astra said but his eyes were trained on Savathün fearfully. “Aten,” he tore his eyes away and looked at his sisters. Killing was staring at him with her perfect golden eyes full of fear. She was afraid of him and a cold hand clenched around his heart. He hadn't wanted to scare her. Astra was scared too as she held Killing against her chest. But she wasn't scared of Aten, she was scared for him.

“I didn't mean to,” he whispered.

“I know,” she whispered back.

“I just wanted him to stop hurting me.”

“I know,” she said again. “But you need to run.”

“What?” he asked even as a low, mourn filled, wail rose up from Savathün’s slumped form.

“Run.” The keening was getting louder. Killing clung to Astra, burying her head in her chest with a whine.

“But I don't-

“Run!” Astra yelled as Savathün’s scream reached fever pitch. Aten looked behind him back at the two Imperials and saw Savathün rising to her feet, darkness swirling around her and filling her wings and pouring from her eyes. She looked at Aten and screamed furiously at him. There would be no bolt eating this time.

Aten cast one last look at his sisters before he took off.

Savathün screamed again, a horrible anguished wail of despair, loss, and hatred. Aten managed to get his wings out and under him. His wings caught dead air before he shoved his own magic into it to give himself lift and he shot up the tunnel like an arrow. Behind him Savathün was in hot pursuit, screaming and hurling dark, twisted, magic at him as bolts of lightning or sucking pockets of nightmare.

He took the shortest route to the surface, hugging the curves as tight as he could. He saw a great web of magic sewn across the massive mouth of the Warren. It dripped and dribbled like wet ink and the threads were thick and he knew they would burn. He landed in front of them and didn't look back. He could hear and feel Savathün rushing towards him. He couldn't fly through this web. He'd just cut himself to ribbons. Instead, he did something stupid and bit through one of the threads. The magic dispelled against his teeth and turned into methane that made him cough. He bit a few more threads so there was enough space for him to get out and he was out on the island with the open sky.

For a second he panicked. Where could he go? Who could help him? He didn’t have time to think. He just had to go. He jumped into the air just as Savathün was coming up to the web, shrieking. The web fell away at her command and Aten put as much Wind as he could under his wings and took off, streaking through the air over the swamp barely getting above the trees.

Savathün was slightly behind him from having to melt the web but out in open air she wasn’t worried about collapsing the tunnels of her home and just started hurling even more spells at him. He ducked and rolled to not get hit but a bolt hit him in the wing and he lagged. His feet dragged on the tree canopy before he pulled himself back up. Another missile hit him across the back and he plunged into the trees, snapping branches on the way down. His wings were tangled in the branches which scraped at his skin, tangling in his hair and antlers.

Savathün circled above him, collecting a sizzling, boiling, horrible, plague-filled strike in her claws. Frantically Aten grabbed his antlers and ripped them both out. He hissed as he did but it was for the best. Next, he pressed his hand back from his face over his scalp, cutting away his long hair. Last, with some great and mighty effort, he got rid of his wings. He screamed as the bones and muscle shifted too fast, too painfully. But they were gone. He fell through the branches and hit the tepid swamp water below with a splash. As he did he felt the top of the water bubble as Savathün unleashed her spell.

The plague magic boiled the water and seared the mangroves and turned the leaves and thin branches to ash. Aten felt the water start to fester and his skin start to ripple and boil. He thrashed through the clinging, dying, mangrove, roots away from the contaminated, festering, water. He stayed under to avoid the way the air hissed and moaned he could hear from even below the grimy surface.

He was surprised when he suddenly hit clear, cold, water. It hit him like a shock as the cold water soothed his plague burned skin. He looked up. Savathün wasn’t above him. He needed air. His lungs were starting to burn. He quickly surfaced and gasped for breath. The splashing alerted Savathün and in a moment her shadow passed over him. He looked up and swallowed as she came down lower, her feet almost touching the water.

“Ungrateful runt,” Savathün hissed, her red eyes streaming furious tears. “After everything we did for you this is how you repay us,” and she launched another ball of contagion right at Aten’s head. Aten got back under the water. Savathün screamed in fury. She couldn’t join him in the water. Plague magic was dissolved by water. Say what you wanted about Nature and Plague’s history nothing got rid of Plague magic quite like pure, clean, water. He dove deeper, away from her, towards the blue hole.

Something brushed against him and he flailed. He knew there were creatures in the swamp. Dangerous ones. That was why you weren’t to swim far past the docks. He quickly turned and to his great surprise saw… a Fae? He wasn’t sure it was a Fae. It looked like a fish. A strange fish with orange and white banding. The only reason he thought it was a Fae was because of the claws it had and its perfect, intelligent, Wind, eyes.

They stared at each other for a few seconds and then the Fae pointed to where Aten could now see the roots of the huge Cypress Tree that gave the Hall its name. Then it looked at Aten and swam away, towards the tree. Aten glanced up, Savathün was waiting for him to surface for air.

He swam after the Fae, towards the Tree. The Fae crawled out of the water onto what looked like a dock. Aten crawled up after it sputtering and gasping, hoping he was safe here. He heard the crackling of Plague magic and looked behind him to see Savathün with her hands full of magic about to land on the deck. Aten scrambled away across the wooden planks.

Right into a pair of legs.

He looked up and behind him. His brow furrowed. Who was this? It was a girl, younger looking than Aten, older than Killing. Her skin was dark and her hair perfectly black in a hairstyle that someone had lovingly arranged. She looked back at Aten. She had the same perfect Wind eyes as the Fae. The longer he looked the more he swore they moved and shifted like a piece of wind. Who was she? Could she help him?

“Help?” he asked weakly.

She looked away from him and stepped around him just as Savathün landed on the platform. “That’s far enough,” she said.

“Step aside girl,” Savathün snarled. “He has to pay for his crimes. For what he’s done to my family!”

“What did he do?”

“He killed my mate! Beat him to death! He’s a wicked child.”

She looked back at him. “Did you do that?” she asked him.

“He beat me since I was a boy. I was defending myself,” he said. “It got out hand,” he swallowed.

“He’s lying,” Savathün hissed. “That’s all he does, is lie and pray upon those who pity him. Look at him. Pathetic.”

“Leave, Savathün,” the girl said calmly.

“Not without him.”

“I said; leave,” she said.

“Make me, child,” she snarled and advanced on the girl with a hand full of black crackling contagion that dripped from her hand and hissed as it landed on the wood, burning through it.

The girl held up a hand and she made a motion, drawing her hand up elegantly. Savathün gasped as she was lifted off her feet and Aten saw the air leave her body as her lungs slammed closed, the pressure suddenly unequal in her chest. A sharp wind swirled around her, tearing at her clothes, hair, and wings, her tail thrashing in the sudden maelstrom. The solid disease in her hands melted back into her palms as she lost focus and struggled to breathe, her mouth open and gaping like a fish out of water. Aten stared. He’d only heard of the most powerful Wind dragons able to steal the very breath from your lungs.

Then it was over. Savathün crashed to the deck, he knees taking the brunt of it before she caught herself with her hands. “You’re only allowed to stay in my territory because I say you can,” the girl said and Aten’s eyes widened. This was the Progenitor. He had only ever heard of Savathün and Oryx speak about her. She was hardly ever seen and hadn’t come into the Warren during the Emperor sighting. Savathün and Oryx always spoke of her with respect or even fear. The two were many things but foolish was not one of them. Even they knew you did not trifle with the children of the Gods.

On the deck Savathün wheezed and gasped to get her breath back, clutching her chest like she was dying. Aten wasn’t sure who to look at. Savathün, or the Progenitor. He didn’t even know her name. It was never spoken by Savathün and Oryx and he hadn’t been allowed around the rest of the Hall since he was a child. “Now please, Savathün, don’t make me do worse. Just leave. I’m sorry about your mate.”

“Kill him,” she wheezed, pointing at Aten.

The Progenitor looked back at Aten and he froze, terrified. “No. He has uses still. You may not kill him. Now begone before you regret it.”

Savathün finally dragged herself to her feet, still short of breath. “I won’t forget this, Layali,” she hissed.

“I’m not afraid of you, Savathün,” was all she said, looking up at the old witch. “Leave my Eye and begone from my sight.”

Savathün gave a wordless hiss at her before turning around and flying away. The two of them watched her go. “Is it safe?” a new voice called and Aten turned and looked to see a yellow skydancer poke her head out of an opening in the trunk of the tree.

“Yes. It’s safe now,” the Progenitor, Layali, said. Then she looked at Aten. “Are you alright?”

“I’m alive,” he swallowed.

Layali frowned a little. She offered him her hand to help him up. He hesitated before taking it tentatively. With more strength than he expected she pulled him to his feet. “Let’s get you cleaned up and into some clothes and you can tell me all about it,” she said. She was still holding his hand.

“Okay,” he said weakly.

“Lianna, go get Vrej, please. He needs a healer.”

“It’s alright?” Lianna asked.

Layali looked up at him. “Yeah, he’s alright.” Lianna nodded and jumped off the deck into the air as Layali led Aten inside the Cypress Tree.


End file.
